Vetting: ‘I’m sorry’ – Suhuyini tells Chair

Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini, has offered apologies to the Chairman of the Appointments Committee of parliament, Joe Osei Owusu, for his exchanges with him during the vetting of Energy Minister-designate Boakye Agyarko.

“Let me take this opportunity to apologise to the Chairman of the Committee for the fact that I lost my temper at some point yesterday. I sincerely apologise,” Mr Suhuyini said on Tuesday, January 24.

The chairman of the Committee abruptly “ruled out” Mr Suhuyini, from questioning Mr Agyarko on Monday, 23 January, after a heated back-and-forth between the two legislators that followed the minority MP’s initial question.

Mr Owusu cut off Mr Suhuyini, who, at the time, was vehemently protesting against the manner in which he was being handled by the chairman after Mr Owusu had intervened to stop him from asking a question pertaining to a money laundering scandal at the Bank of New York where Mr Agyarko had worked prior to his resignation.

The NDC MP said he was merely trying to demand clarity on the circumstances that surrounded Mr Agyarko’s resignation vis-à-vis the money laundering scandal but the chairman of the committee felt Mr Suhuyini was breaching the rules of the sitting by asking such a question.

The sitting temporarily degenerated into a market square atmosphere until the chairman restored order. While explaining to the committee that the New York branch of the bank had nothing to do with the money laundering scandal that happened in the bank’s UK branch, Mr Agyarko wondered why Mr Suhuyini would attempt to link him, in the first place, to a scandal in which neither his bank branch nor his name was implicated.

Mr Suhuyini was subsequently cut off by the chairman as he attempted asking further questions and explaining his reasons for asking the first question.

However, before the beginning of the vetting process for Minister for Education-designate, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, on Tuesday, the Tamale MP rendered the apology to the house.